A REAL DISCOVERY
Darkness found Curlie again on the edge of the Forest Preserve. This time he was on foot and alone. Apparently he carried nothing. His right hip pocket bulged, the handle of a flashlight protruded from his coat pocket, that was all.
He did not pause at the spot where they had hid their car the night before, but continued down the main road for a half mile farther. There he plunged into the forest, to continue his journey under cover. Eleven o'clock found him concealed in a clump of bushes in the woods that lay opposite the millionaire's driveway.
"If they come to-night," he whispered to himself, "I'll know whether they belong on that estate or not, and if they do I'll know who it is. Anyway, I'll know it's one of J. Anson's folks. And we'll see if it is a boy or the girl?"
The question interested him. He had no relish for getting a girl into trouble, especially that frank-faced, smiling girl he had seen on horseback.
"But the thing must stop," he told himself sternly, taking a tight grip on something in his hip pocket.
The night was clear. He could see objects quite plainly. The trees, the shrubbery, the stone pillars at the entrance to the driveway, stood out in bold relief. For a time he sat staring at them in silence. At last he closed his eyes and slept, as was his custom, all but his ears.
He was startled from this stupor by a sudden flash of light which made its presence felt even through his eyelids.
As his eyes flew open, he found himself staring at two glowing headlights. The next instant he had flattened himself in the grass.
"Wow! Hope they didn't see me!" he whispered.
A low-built, powerful car had come purring so quietly down the driveway of the estate that it had rounded a sudden curve before he had been aware of its presence.
Now, with undiminished speed, it turned to the right, entered the public highway and sped straight on.
As Curlie rose from the grass to stare after it, a low exclamation escaped his lips. Supported by high parallel bars, which were doubtless in turn supported by strong guy wires, were the aerials of a radiophone. The whole of this rose from, and rested upon, the body of the powerful roadster.
"And I missed them!" he exploded, then:
"No, I didn't. They're stopping."
It was true. Some eighty rods down the road the car had slowed up. He had no means of telling what they were doing but felt quite warranted in supposing they were sending a message.
Like a flash he was away through the brush. Speed and the utmost caution were necessary. If a limb cracked, if he fell over a hidden ditch, the quarry would be frightened away. He must see what was going on, see it with his own eyes.
Fairly holding his breath, he struggled forward. Now he had covered a third of the distance, now half, now three-quarters and now—
His lips parted in an unuttered groan. He leaped out of the bush. Something flashed in his hand. For a second that thing was pointed down the road where the speedy car had suddenly resumed its journey. Then his hand dropped to his side.
"No," he said slowly, "it won't do. Too risky. Guess they haven't seen me. If not, they will be back. And next time," he shook his fist at the vanishing car, "next time my fair lad or lady, you won't escape me."
Turning back, he again disappeared into the brush.
In the meantime things were happening in the air. Coles Masters, who was in charge of the secret tower room, had his hands full. He switched on this loud-speaker and lowered that one to a whisper. He tuned in this one and cut that one out.
"Whew!" he exclaimed, mopping his brow, "what a night! Wish Curlie were here."
To start the night's entertainment a boy had broken in on the radio concert. Then a crank had come shouting right into the middle of a speech by a politician. A few moments later a message on 1200 had fairly burst his ear-drums. The message had been short, composed of just three words:
"Dark, cloudy night."
"Regular thunderbolt behind that!" he muttered as he measured the location and found it to come from the city's great hotel. "Enough there to send it round the world. Shouldn't be surprised to get the echo of it in a few seconds myself. The nerve of the man!"
In strange contrast to this was the whisper which followed within five minutes. It was sent on 200.
"Hello, Curlie. Did you get that? Terrible, wasn't it?" came the whisper. "But, Curlie, I don't think you need to bother about him. He's leaving in a day or two. He's going, far, far away. He's going north; out of your territory entirely. I know you'd love to catch him, Curlie, but it would be dangerous, awfully dangerous! So don't you try, for he is going far, far away."
Coles Masters' fingers had worked rapidly during this whispered message. Not only had he measured the distance and taken the location, but he had written down the message word for word.
"Well, I'll be jiggered!" he muttered. "That was a girl, a young girl and a pretty one too, or I miss my guess. Anyway she has an interesting whisper. She's at that same hotel and seems to know Curlie. She must have broken in on my 1200 friend. So he's going north? Can't go any too soon for me. Mighty queer case. Have to turn it over to Curlie. It's all Greek to me."
"Hello, there! What—"
He wheeled about to snap a button. A message was being shouted out on 600.
"That's the chap Curlie's after. So he hasn't got him yet? Well, here's hoping he hurries." His pencil began rapidly writing the message.
Meanwhile Curlie in his woods retreat had moved silently over to the other side of the driveway.
"Probably will come back the other way," he concluded.
He did not remain behind the fence this time but threw himself into the shallow depths of a dry ravine. He remained keenly alert. His eyes were constantly on the road, which lay like a brown ribbon a full mile straight before him.
He was thinking of his various cases. Equal in interest to the one which he was now hunting down was that big hotel case. He was thinking of the girl. Why had she whispered those messages to him? Was she merely a tool of the man behind the powerful radio machine? Was she simply leading him on? He could not feel that she was. Somehow her whisper had an accent of genuine interest in it.
"Wonder what she's like," he asked himself. Then, with a smile playing about his lips, he tried to guess.
"Small, very active, has dark brown hair and snappy black eyes." After a moment's thought he chuckled: "Probably really a heavy blonde; something like two hundred pounds. You can't tell anything by a voice. You—"
Suddenly he braced himself up on his elbows. His keen ears had caught a distant purring sound. Two yellow balls of fire were rapidly approaching—the headlights of a fast-moving automobile.
"He comes! Now for it!" He prepared to spring.
In an amazingly short time the car was all but upon him. Leaping to his feet, he let out a wild whoop and, brandishing his automatic threateningly, stood squarely in the middle of the road.
His heart beat wildly. There could be no mistake. He saw the wires and rods swaying above the car.
For a second the car slowed up, then, with a snort it leaped right at him. Nimble as he was, he barely escaped being run down.
As the car flashed past him, he wheeled about and almost instantly his automatic barked three times. Simultaneous with the last shot there came a louder explosion.
"Tire! Got you," he muttered.
Instantly the car swerved to the side of the road. A tire had gone flat. The car had skidded.
The rods which carried the aerials caught in a tree top. The car, jerked back like a mad horse caught by a lariat, reared up on its hind wheels, threatened to turn turtle, then crashed over on its side with its engine still racing wildly.
Sudden as had been the catastrophe, it had not been too quick for the driver. Just as the car crashed over, Curlie caught sight of a figure in long linen duster and with closely wrapped head, dashing up the bank, over the fence and into the brush.
"Go it," he exclaimed, making no attempt to catch the fugitive, "you know the country better than I do. I'd never catch you in that labyrinth of trees. Besides, I don't need to. Your equipment is pretty well smashed up and you've left me enough evidence to make out a beautiful case."
Walking over to the machine, he reached over and shut off the engine. After that, in a very leisurely manner he collected various odds and ends from the radiophone equipment. Having stuffed these into his pockets, he wrenched the back number plate from the machine and tucked it under his arm.
"Guess that's enough," he murmured. "Now I can take my own time in springing the thing. He probably thinks I was a hold-up man, but even if he guessed the truth he couldn't escape me and couldn't get his equipment back in shape short of a week, so that's that."
Turning, he started toward the nearest interurban line a good five miles away.
When he had walked a mile, he stopped suddenly in his track.
"Say!" he exclaimed. "Was that the son or the daughter? All muffled up that way I couldn't tell."
"Ho, well," he resumed his march, "that'll come out in time. Only I hope it wasn't the girl. I sort of liked her looks."